Live and Learn — may not be easy for some…
It turns out that some people don’t learn from their mistakes. From the article in The Future of Things:
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany have found a genetic factor that affects our ability to learn from our errors. The scientists demonstrated that men carrying the A1 mutation, which reduces the amount of dopamine D2 receptors in the brain, are less successful at learning to avoid mistakes than men who do not carry this genetic mutation. This finding has the potential to improve our understanding of the causes of addictive and compulsive behaviors.
To me this becomes more interesting when you realize that so much of our society is based on learning from our mistakes. So, how would this disposition to not learn from mistakes maintain its 30% of the population? My guess, and remember I’m a normal thinking geek, is that in some situations you want people who don’t learn from their mistakes because in some cases having someone willing to try again IS a survival trait. The press release from the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research give more technical detail on the A1-allele carriers and its impact on dopamine D2 receptors. There’s also a link to the Science article (but you have to pay to read it unless you otherwise have access — like being a member or subscriber).
What interests me is the impact this has on society. Remember the famous saying:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
George Santayana
Well, I’m thinking perhaps we should have our Congress and high office holders tested for this A1-allele condition. Maybe we need to make sure that Congress and all decision making bodies have the 60% who learn from their mistakes and the 30% who don’t — just make sure that when we continue to make a mistake it’s with due deliberation and not because we haven’t learned our lesson.
It’s just a thought but I’ll be mulling this information over for a bit now that I know.